Sad Little Man Disgraces Self, Profession

A state archivist in Albany has been charged with stealing hundreds of rare and valuable documents on American history from his place of work. The first line almost made me spit coffee onto my keyboard; it’s kind of funny that he was doing something so banal with the cash:

ALBANY — A veteran state archivist said he stole hundreds of historical artifacts from the State Library — including two Davy Crockett almanacs — to pay for home renovations, tuition and his daughter’s $10,000 credit card bill.

Sure, blame it on your daughter, pal. He’s kind of like the reverse of a librarian. Remember Winston Smith, the character from 1984, who destroyed news every day as part of his job? It’s like that, except this guy sold stuff to put a pool in his yard.

He got caught when a lawyer/history buff from Virginia saw some of his postings on ebay and knew something was amiss. Good idea that, placing unique historical artifacts on a public auction site. No one was ever going to find out.

Call me Ish.

An article in the NY Times highlights a new craze in Japan–the cell-phone novel. Here is an interesting quote:

“Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels. What is more, the top three spots were occupied by first-time cellphone novelists, touching off debates in the news media and blogosphere.”

And this:

“Indeed, many cellphone novelists had never written fiction before, and many of their readers had never read novels before, according to publishers.”

I wonder how long it might be before we see some of these things in the U.S.? Another passage trumpets the universality of the books compared to coventional novels. Consider this quote from an author:

“Traditionally, Japanese would depict a scene emotionally, like ‘The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country,’ ” Mika Naito, a novelist, said, referring to the famous opening sentence of Yasunari Kawabata’s “Snow Country.”

“In cellphone novels, you don’t need that,” said Ms. Naito, 36, who recently began writing cellphone novels at the urging of her publisher. “If you limit it to a certain place, readers won’t be able to feel a sense of familiarity.”

By that reasoning, the less detail and insight the writer provides, the better off we’ll all be! Popular films have been proving this logic for many years.